This is an extremely hard question to answer, because a proportion of the population, as you already know, has a bias surrounding what they perceive as "mental illness." There's a difference between an illness and a disorder. But they don't know that. So, many people will treat you differently if they perceive you as different. This is what racism is about to a certain degree.

Autistic people are far from stupid, their brains just see the world in a much different way than others. They can be very literal and unable to change, which causes them to come into conflict with "normal" people. And I'm guessing, at least half the time, when an autistic person experiences a "melt down," it arises because of the ignorance of the other party. This is because many people don't actually know how to live amongst others from a place of respect and tolerance. If respect and tolerance was common, we wouldn't have so many wars, crimes and violence. This world is very intolerant, which makes it all the more difficult for someone who is autistic. I'm not autistic and I find myself staying home much more now, because I'm tired of getting honked at for going ONLY ten km an hour over the speed limit.

And I'm also tired of narrowly averting a car accident, due to someone driving 40 km over the speed limit.

But, back to you. Do you know if there are any associations in your area that help people like yourself find jobs? There are some employers who will hire people through such associations, knowing the person is autistic and also knowing how to work with people who are autistic. I don't want to give you false hope, because such an organisation might not exist near you. Or perhaps you could try to get a job at such an organisation.

My son got a job where his autistic tendencies worked in his favour. He's a stock manager, so he has to keep track of things. It's all about bar codes, stock numbers, quantities. And he is a master at this job, where others struggle with the job, so he's actually highly valued and with that comes respect.